Albert Lasker
Basic Medical Research Award

Welcome Remarks

Welcome Remarks from Lasker Chairman Alfred Sommer
I'm Al Sommer, Chairman of the Board of Directors of the Albert and Mary Lasker Foundation.

I'm delighted you have joined us for this annual celebration of outstanding contributions to medical science. Today marks the 66th anniversary of these prestigious awards.

Many of you play an important role in the Foundation's work. I would like my fellow members of the Board of Directors to please stand and be recognized.

In particular, I would like to recognize the many years of dedicated service that Dr. Purnell Chopin has provided to Lasker. He retired from the Board in May, but in recognition of his many contributions and years of wise council, the Board unanimously voted him Director Emeritus. Purnell, please stand and be recognized.

Every year, this Awards luncheon is graced by the attendance of a number of previous Lasker Laureates. I'd like to ask my fellow Lasker Laureates to stand and be recognized.

It is no secret that the high regard in which the Lasker Awards are held is due in large measure to the dedicated, insightful work of our illustrious Jury. I'd like to ask those members of the Jury present today, a Jury so ably chaired by Joe Goldstein, to please stand and be recognized.

---

Welcome Remarks from Lasker President Maria Freire
Thank you, Al. It is such a privilege to be with you all today to honor this year's Lasker laureates, and to recognize the transformative contributions that they have made to the practice of medicine, the pursuit of science, and to the well-being of people all over the world.

As President of the Lasker Foundation, I am often asked, "what does it take to win a Lasker?" Such a seemingly simple question: I always wish that I had a simple answer.

Unfortunately, sometimes there are no ready answers for simple questions. Indeed, oftentimes the success of Lasker laureates is determined by the very way that they themselves ask questions: How does a protein fold inside a cell? What does traditional medicine teach us about ways to treat malaria? How can a research institution pursue paths to treat disease, and respond to patients' needs?

Sometimes, the perseverance of laureates stands out: the dogged determination to continue a course of investigation through a long and frustrating series of experiments. Sometimes, the opposite is true: the key insight comes after abandoning a particular line of questioning, and imagining the world anew.

Perhaps, more than anything, creativity stands out as a distinguishing factor in tying together the work of Lasker winners past and present. Science is decidedly NOT a sophisticated form of intellectual drudgery — it is a creative pursuit. Great science is beautiful, like great art. And as with art, beauty is in the eye of the beholder, which is to say that science invites critique and interpretation.

These are some of the themes pursued by Joe Goldstein in his annual essays on the deep connections between science and art. Joe has been the Chairman of the Lasker Medical Research Awards Jury for 16 years. An art aficionado as well as a world-class scientist, for the past decade Joe has explored creativity in science in the introductory essays that he writes for the Nature Medicine supplements that accompany the Lasker Awards. These essays have been collected and bound as a retrospective, and I am very pleased to present you a copy — you will find the book included with the materials at your table.

Joe always presents a version of his Nature Medicine essay at the luncheon, as an overview of the current Lasker awards. This year is no exception: he will discuss a persistent theme explored by renaissance painters, as well as by a great post-impressionist, to suggest yet another crucial factor in high-stakes science: I am speaking, of course, of luck!